Review: In Praise of Grace
If you find yourself perusing Netflix in your leisure time, please check out Alias Grace. I am a sucker for a good period drama as it is, but as this one centers on true crime and a complex protagonist, it drew me in completely.
Earlier this year, I found myself entranced by Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale. And now it has happened again in a different medium via the Netflix adaptation of her novel Alias Grace. This story explores not only the evil that repression and mistreatment of women leads to, but the question of what lengths they are willing to go to be free of it. It is based on the true story of Grace Marks, an Irish-Canadian immigrant who was accused at the age of sixteen for conspiring with a stable hand to murder her employer and his housekeeper/mistress. Atwood’s novel explores psychiatrist Simon Jordan’s growing obsession with Grace as he uses talk therapy to reveal what truly happened the day of the murders, which Grace claims not to remember.
Before the murders, we are shown parts of Grace’s youth as told to Dr. Jordan: her mother’s death on the crossing from Ireland, her father’s drinking and abuse, and her employment at the Parkinson household as a maid.
This is where she meets her good friend Mary Whitney, a passionate and strong-minded girl with secret ideas of rebellion and equality. Their world is a dangerous one, and Mary teaches Grace to navigate it as safely as she can, both as a servant and a woman. The earnest friendship of youth springs up easily between them, and the possibility that—perhaps on Grace’s end—the feelings are more than friendly, is left open to the viewer’s interpretation. On her first night there, Grace reaches out a cautious hand to stroke Mary’s long, dark hair as she sleeps beside her. “It was the happiest time of my life,” she tells Dr. Jordan, but we know this is short-lived. Mary’s secret liason with the son of the household ends in tragedy, but the death of Grace’s friendship with her happens before this, when she fails to heed her own advice, losing herself in a foolish love affair. There is no hope of a happy ending for a woman of her social standing. Grace herself would never do such a thing, unless she saw in it a guaranteed means to an end.
The miniseries, written by Atwood and Sarah Polley, and directed by Mary Harron (American Psycho), is a distinctly female creation, woven as expertly as Grace weaves the quilts we see her stitching throughout many of her scenes. Bold motifs of blood, deception, betrayal, repression, loss, patrirachy, and sexual abuse all feature prominently in the web Grace spins for us, even as she sits sewing primly in an armchair in her modest Victorian clothing. Every now and then she tells her spellbound psychiatrist a sordid or bawdy truth, only to apologize quietly as he blinks at her in horror. “I can see you are shocked, sir,” she says, even though she is a convicted murderess, who does not mind shocking men, or in her words, telling them what they want to hear. Women didn’t speak to men of things like sex or abortion or class distinction in their world, unless they had nothing to lose.
Sarah Gadon has called this her hardest role to date, and I think she will be challenged to top it. She is mesmerizing as Grace, a woman who loves pretty things—be they songs or flowers, kerchiefs or ideas. She is industrious, too. We rarely see her idle even in the confines of her tiny cell. She hums hymns as her fingers move, pushing needle and thread through the fabric of a quilt square, or dusting furniture in the governor’s house where she meets Dr. Jordan. At times her luminous blue eyes and open, porcelain-skinned features seem to lend credence to her supporters’ insistence that she is innocent. Others, she appears severe, or sly and seductive, imparting to the viewer with no more than a glance that she knows more than she reveals. Her accent work is truly commendable and in one scene, which it would be a spoiler to discuss, it is downright terrifying. If you're a writer, you’ll find yourself envious of the character's depth and nuance. She is both fragile and resilient, beguiling and sinister.
We’re left with more questions than answers in the end. In a few comment threads I followed, everyone seemed to have their own strongly-defended opinion of the truth, even though it seems the show-runners intended ambiguity. I haven’t settled on a consensus. Was Grace possessed, mentally ill, or merely more calculating than anyone has given her credit for? In my opinion, it’s not the answer that matters so much as Grace herself, and her hard-won resolution.
“That woman has nerves of flint,” her former lawyer tells Dr. Jordan. “She is leading you on a merry chase.”
Grace will lead you on, too, leaving you thoughtfully haunted by her story long after its end, but I don't think you will mind.
